


An Outsider's Guide to Mixed-Quadrant Relations

by Callmesalticidae, DaneelsSoul, shadow_wasserson



Series: Building From Scratch [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Quadrant Vacillation, quadrants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6974482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmesalticidae/pseuds/Callmesalticidae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaneelsSoul/pseuds/DaneelsSoul, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_wasserson/pseuds/shadow_wasserson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TT: Although the content of this article is likely already better understood by our largely trollish population, this document may still be of historical interest in recording an early human perspective on one aspect of troll romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Outsider's Guide to Mixed-Quadrant Relations

**Author's Note:**

> Act 2 Intermission 1 of Building from Scratch

Unfortunately, the title of this document may well be somewhat of a misnomer, as there are very few that are likely to be truly informed by this document. The trolls almost certainly have a better handle on these issues than I do, and Dave is unlikely to actually ever read this despite the good that it might do him. Therefore, I find myself writing this largely for my own benefit, that I might have a chance to lay bare the impressions I have been accumulating on this topic over these past years so that they might be examined in greater detail, or at very least catalogued and shuffled into individual glass cases to be put on display.

So taking the aforementioned inaccuracy into account, I feel that I must also take the time to properly cite my sources for this material. I am quite tragically lacking in the necessary resources for a proper anthropological investigation of these issues and so have needed to make do with lesser methods. The bulk of my informants have been literary in nature and I have done my best to glean what I can from the various troll romance novels that can be found strewn throughout the meteor. Although these were written for an audience assumed to already have a familiarity with the issues at hand, a great deal of information can be carefully extracted from the subtext. Another source of information has been by way of questioning Kanaya, and although these inquiries have proved quite fruitful, I must confess to having had an ulterior motive for posing many of them (she is quite fetching when she is flustered). But beyond these and some casual interactions with various members of the troll species, I am largely out of options for research. Therefore, since none of these can truly claim to have a global or unbiased view of the situation, it is extremely probable that my analysis has bypassed large and important aspects of these issues. Therefore, with this final caveat, my dear and almost certainly hypothetical reader, I permit you to follow me on this journey into an intriguing aspect of troll romance.

The classical troll romantic ideal seems to have been fairly well standardized for some time. Each troll should have a fated partner in each of the four quadrants (or two partners in the case of the ashen quadrant), and these partners should be distinct from each other leading to a total of five soulmates for each troll. Now of course as is so often the case, when romantic ideals come face to face with reality the ideals are often forced to run screaming into the darkness, so there are a number of ways in which these ideals may fail to materialize in practice. Many of these ways are likely familiar to a human reader, as many of these ideals are shared between the two cultures. The notion of finding a perfect partner is not particularly prominent on the grisly face of reality. Thus compromises are often made. The notions of settling, breakups, divorce, and remarriage are all familiar to Alternians, although the exact cultural instantiations of these institutions may differ. On the other hand, the trolls have what humans lack in the plenitude of distinct romantic relationships and so experience the possibility of a distinct failure mode, in particular the situation that a troll is put in when they find themselves attracted to the same individual in more than one quadrant at a time.

Many arguments are given for why such relationships are to be avoided. They range from the more idealistic mentioned above, to practical considerations, to some that seem to be due to simple bigotry. On the more practical side is the idea that the quadrants are inherently incompatible with each other. For example, one might try to claim that love and hate are inherently contradictory emotions and that by attempting to combine them will lead to an inability to truly experience either. These ideas are often mixed with some notions that the pure quadranted relationships are important in serving the social order and that by mixing them one is either playing with fire or actively subverting that order. These continue on to less reasoned arguments. Those range from semantic games played with the definitions of the quadrants themselves and ideas that the mono-quadrant relations are simply the way things are, to more gut level appeals by those who seem to be protesting that such relationships are icky (though I can't help but wonder whether or not the proponents of the latter argument are not trying to cover up such feelings within themselves). I hope that I am not biasing my opinions to much by stating this, but I get the impression that Alternian views on these relationships are quite analogous to human views on homosexual relationships throughout much of the world.

Now such attraction is not particularly uncommon even. A troll that spends a large amount of time with a particular acquaintance may well develop an attraction to this companion in multiple quadrants, the interesting question is in how this troll is to respond to these urges.

The first principle to keep in mind is that actually formally entering a relationship with the same troll in multiple quadrants has been heavily looked down upon in troll society since antiquity. Terezi has informed me that such dalliances have been prosecutable offenses for some time. Of course this has not always stopped people from engaging in such illicit activities (Karkat's ancestor is a notable example of one who did, though I wonder at times if the fact that the Signless engaged in such activities is not partly responsible for his persecution), but only a very brave troll would dare to so much as propose such an engagement. Therefore, a less extraordinary troll stuck in such a predicament must find another solution to his or her woes.

The most thoroughly sanctioned solution to this predicament is quite natural- to pick a single quadrant. This solution is so thoroughly stressed that it has become a staple of the troll romantic comedy business. While a human comedy may attempt to keep the audience guessing with a will they/won't they type subplot (though this is admittedly an overused device in human cinema an astute listener will realize that once this question is posed, the former outcome will invariably be the result), the troll moviegoer will be exposed to a far more interesting game, asked to guess which quadrant the couple will find themselves in by the time the credits roll (a question whose answer is not always so trivial to determine, that is unless one managed to catch the atrocity that is the title of the movie in question). 

Of course a troll is not always willing to settle for letting one side of their feelings languish in order that the other might survive, nor are they necessarily willing to risk the dangers associated with a mixed relationship. Fortunately for many, there is a middle ground to be had- vacillation. By running their relationship through different quadrants in series rather than parallel, a pair of trolls manage to make use of both sides of the coin as it were without actually stepping into territory that is likely to get them culled. Such activity lands in somewhat of a grey area. It is considered to be somewhat risqué and perhaps morally questionable without, usually, slipping into territory that would be considered punishable. Perhaps this is why the much newer medium of romance novels seems to have taken such a liking to such relationships.

Finally, I would be remiss in this summary were I not to make some note of the native terminology to describe such relationships. The more academic term seems to be "off-suit". This is a fairly general term that can be used to describe an individual or a relationship, or even an emotion which does not match the appropriate quadrant. Unfortunately, despite this being a relatively dry descriptive term, it is still not one that would commonly be spoken at more than whisper's volume in polite society. For those trying to be less polite, the term "deuce" was used as a more explicit slur. Used to describe an individual or relationship, this was from what I can tell a fairly nasty term. In fact, I am somewhat surprised that this word did not become more commonplace as a generalized impugnment of character. Perhaps the seriousness of the charge prevented it from being more broadly used. In any case, despite having seen very few uses of the word, I already find it quite distasteful and thus will refrain from discussing it further here. 

In any case, I seem to have exhausted by understanding of the material at hand, and thus rather than making a fool of myself by speculating further, I believe that it is in my interest in end this document as expeditiously as possible. I hope that you have enjoyed this walk with me through the gardens of troll romantic mores my dear and likely illusory reader. I leave you now to return to whatever it was that you were doing before you stumbled upon this no doubt ancient and worn out parchment.


End file.
